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Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Finish up another quilt top. Two more quilt tops to finish assembling and then I will have 8 stacked up to get quilted. I really don’t know why I don’t just quilt them as I finish the tops, but I don’t. Once I get at least four done, then I’ll think about quilting. I had my four ready then got embroidered blocks from one of the ladies at QFC to assemble into a quilt. Decided to get those tops done, then I got two more sets of embroidered blocks along with cute fabric from another lady from QFC. So I will get those quilt tops made up and start a quilting marathon!

Aren’t these just the cutest cows. I don’t know where the designs came from so I apologize for not being able to give credit to the digitizer. I wanted this to be a happy quilt and therefore all the color! I’ve had the dot fabric in my stash in quite awhile and I liked the way it played with the tie dyed fabric.

Another set of designs that I don’t know who the digitizer is. I have to admit to not having a clue as how to set these blocks or what fabrics to use. My left-handed friend (you know who you are ) had sent me some fabric collections from Collecting Threads a while back and I was able to use some of those in this quilt. The red border seems to be screaming in these pictures, but it actually helped pull some of the red from the other fabrics. I have been determined to use as much from my stash as I possibly can and thankfully, it’s working. I see my stash starting to whittle down a bit!

This quilt was made by my granddaughter, Kari. She had pulled the fabrics and made the 4-patch blocks. It was my job to embroider the designs for her. I’d started the filled designs and didn’t really care for them. I was working on the RW set when she came to work on the quilt. She decided that what I had was enough and she’d use what was there. We were a little short of the orange border fabric but managed to make it work with the alternating of the skinny borders. And again I have to apologize for not knowing who the digitizer is of the designs. When I first started machine embroidery, I would rename files so it was easier to locate specific themes. I did finally realize that I needed to start keeping the digitizer’s name intact even when renaming files….

On Facebook, someone issued a “pay it forward” challenge. The first 5 people who commented on her post would received something hand made from her if they in turn put the same post on their ‘wall’. The lady I commented to is a terrific artist (and also my son’s MIL) and there was no way I was going to pass up the possibility of something created by her. We have until the end of 2013 to “pay it forward”. This is what I’ve done so far:

Saturday, January 19, 2013

I will start with a picture before I go into my subject of this blog post.

Another quilt top finish for QFC. The designs are Barnyard Toile from Emblibrary. I usually use 10 embroidered design squares in charity quilt but this set was of 8. By doing the Snowball block with the design squares, it left me all those HST’s. So…. I made use of them! And once again, I utilized the fabric I had on hand. I had hoped to make a mitered corner border but was short fabric and I had already sewn the two strips together so the yellow accent border just extended – it is now a design element I am slowly using up some older fabrics that I have, some fabrics that were given to me and just simply clearing out the excess that I really want to go away.

Okay, so on to QAL’s or “Quilt Alongs”…. As I read the blogs there are quite a few of these QAL’s. Several that I’d like to join, but I don’t. Why? well, I know me. If these were swaps, I’d be all over them! Then I have a commitment to someone other than myself. I know I have to make a block (or several) and send them out and I wouldn’t want to disappoint another person. But if it’s for me, I can ‘put if off’ until later and then later, then a few months have passed and then …. well you get the idea. And then there are the mysteries. I think the most popular mysteries are the ones that Bonnie Hunter does. I have downloaded the ‘clues’ for the past few years and have yet to do one. I get really intimidated when I read something like ‘make 300 flying geese’….. And of course, in Bonnie’s mysteries, the fabrics are scraps. Now you’d think with my love / hate relationship with scraps I’d have plenty. So far – nope! Anyway…. Maybe someday I’ll actually pull out the directions and make a ‘mystery’ quilt. Oh, and another thing (while I’m thinking about it), I really appreciate the time that Bonnie puts into creating her mysteries. I know she’s a busy lady but I sure wish she would release the mystery AFTER the holidays. I think that might be another reason why I shy away from them – the timing. In order to play along with the others who are doing it, I’d have to work on they clues while still trying to get my Christmas projects done… Okay, enough of that.

I am curious, though – do you join in on the QAL’s? and if so, what is the most enticing reason you join?

Hope you all have a really nice weekend. Thank goodness the temps are finally getting back to normal here in AZ. My grandsons are playing football again, so my Saturdays will be spent in Tucson watching little guys play football and I’ll love every minute of it.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

What? A date for a title? I couldn’t think of anything catchy this morning, so the date won

In my last post I showed a picture of swap blocks, the one set was not correct. Here’s the correct version:

Note the smaller center triangles are the same fabric as the outer larger triangles. I liked both versions….

Here are some blocks for a quilt for QFC:

I had an idea working in my brain that didn’t work. I’d thought about taking the square in a square blocks and the dog print fabric and making 12” 4 patch blocks, then it dawned on me, I’d have to have double the number of embroidered square in a square blocks. So I reverted to my favorite block setting, the Attic Windows.

These designs are from Ace Points and I love this little dog with the lady bug.

I wanted a larger quilt than what I had. And I was determined to use what I had on hand – so here is the finished top:

The dog fabric is a one way print and I had a narrow long piece of it. So it worked for the side borders and I used the other blue I had in the blocks for the top & bottom borders as it was ‘just enough’!

I’m working on another animal quilt for QFC. It will be farm animals as I have some fabric that was given to me that depicts farm. It’s another one way print – something that, if I was purchasing, I’d try to avoid!

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Still not posting much….. but I have been doing a little bit in the sewing room…

These are for a block swap over on the QFC Yahoo group. The pattern is from Quilter’s Cache and wouldn’t you know it, I looked at a black & white print out and thought “oh scrappy” well, not exactly…. The small center and larger corner triangles are supposed to be from the same fabric. I’ll be doing these over again

And here are some more for the swap:

These patterns are also from Quilter’s Cache. The set on the right showed templates in the directions but they did not print true to size from my printer. I finally just drafted my own….

And braids…. Braids are quick to sew up but I like to do them with each strip a different fabric. The recipient of these requested batiks and I didn’t have much in batik scraps. I went ahead and cut one strip off each of my yardage pieces (not sure what I was saving the yardage for anyway).

I also managed to get borders on a scrap quilt I posted about here. I will get pictures once I get it all quilted.

I worked at cleaning off my cutting table and cleaning up some scraps. As you know I have a love / hate relationship with scraps. I need ideas on what to do with them. I get easily bored doing string blocks. I also like scraps for paper piecing, but that gets tedious after a while, so that’s another thing that I don’t work on so much….

My new year has started off at a snail’s pace and I’m so hoping that isn’t an indicator of what my entire year will be like…… But maybe I should look at it as relaxed and easy I don’t make resolutions – I don’t want to feel like a failure at the end of the year. And of course, the diet plans, the exercise plans and all the weight loss programs are hitting the commercials on TV hot and heavy and every year I get mad all over again. With so much emphasis on “looking good” they wonder why the kids today suffer from self esteem issues! Okay, on that note I’ll shut up as this is a huge sore spot with me.